Featured Video: “Shave the World”
March 9, 2010
David Vanadia Presentation AIGA Shift Event. This is a fabulous storytelling presentation by one of my fellow storytellers, David Vanadia from Portland, Oregon. David you make storytelling shine!
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Risk Or Commit Yourself To a Dull Life!
March 8, 2010
This week I got an email from a most amazing gentleman who is “in the first month of his 90th year” and still going strong. He contacted me because I am starting to write a column for my local paper and he was quite an influential figure here in my town at one time.
When I read his CV, I was amazed. He did just about everything that one human being could do for a small town. He was even called the ‘mayor’ for awhile. I was very impressed, not just with his accomplishments, which were many, but even more so with his courage.
This man put himself in the fire over and over again and was called - a lightening rod for controversy. I love that. It means that he had the guts to go against the grain, which is something that we sorely need and is a necessity for change.
When he was telling me his stories, which were totally fascinating, I was amazed at all that he had done and how at age ninety, he is still going strong. Wow, I want to be like that when I grow up!
He told me stories about meeting Charles Lindberg at six years old and flying in his plane, getting into a prestigious business school without taking their tests and an amazing encounter with the Archbishop of Canterbury while traveling in Egypt. He went on and on and I could have listened to him for hours. He is a master storyteller among other things.
He never lost me for a moment, nor did he lose the central point of his conversation even though he took me all over the map. I could see why people had been both fascinated and terrified by him. He is a figure to reckon with. I loved him instantly. In fact if he still lived in our town, I would have invited myself over for tea, but he and his wife now live in Florida.
While we were speaking she was making faces in the background which I’m imagining were like, “You’re not going to keep telling her all of those stories are you dear?” But I told him to tell her that I was fascinated and wanted to hear everything.
The turning point of the conversation came when I told him that I had been considering giving up on writing my column. I had only published one piece when I began to get scared. I was afraid to be in the negative limelight, something that often happens in this town if you dare to speak up. I was wondering why I would want to do this.
What had compelled me to write the column in the first place is my desire to make a difference in the world, especially in this town and it’s been particularly hard to make a difference here. It took me almost 4 years to build enough connection and rapport to get this column started.
So when I told him this, that I was thinking of giving up because I was afraid of the negative limelight he said he said the most amazing thing.
He said, “Annie, it’s your decision and I will support you whatever you do. But if you decide not to do this then commit yourself to a dull life. If you go ahead, yes you will be put on the spot, a hot spot at times but it will be fascinating and challenging.”
WOW!
This blew me away. How could I turn back? If this man whose life and way of living is one I admire is telling me at age ninety that not to risk is to commit myself to a dull life - how could I possibly say no?
If you decide not to risk, then commit yourself to a dull life.
Wow. That turned my world on its head. It has made me think about everything differently.
If you can look back on your life from the vantage point of age ninety and still see that all the pain, the heat, the fire and the risks were worth it - then there is no choice at all to make.
The choice is always to risk.
Today take some risks in unexpected directions. You DON’T want a full life do you?!
Thanks to my new mentor and life guide for this story!
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Rumors Are Stories That Stick
March 1, 2010
Great News - I’ve started writing a column for my local newspaper, the Chestnut Hill Local. It is a wonderful paper that even my mother reads every week from Oklahoma! My column will be called, “An Inspiring Change of Altitude,” and will be about inspiring shifts in thinking that are possible for a small but feisty town! This is my second column. Let me know what you think. It’s called:
RUMORS ARE STORIES THAT STICK
Rumor, definition: a statement or claim of questionable accuracy from no known reliable source, usually spread by word of mouth, an unverified account or explanation of events circulating from person to person.
Stories are very popular right now especially in the area of marketing and branding. I’m not exactly sure why since they’ve been around for thousands of years but suddenly everyone is talking about them. Rumors are stories that stick. What does this mean for our everyday lives?
Well if you think about it, a rumor is a story that you tell over and over again, whether you know it is true or not. What a powerful thing. What’s disconcerting though is that since rumors have such a powerful emotional energy, they tend to stick. Why is that?
Think about it this way - did you ever watch a soap opera or a tele-drama? When I was in college, a girlfriend lent me her TV while she was away for the summer. She lent it to me on one condition - that I watch Dallas for her and keep her up to date on the story. 
I hated Dallas but I did it just for her. The funny thing is that by the time she came back to claim her TV, I had gotten hooked on the show and I didn’t want to let her have it back! Those larger than life characters like JR Ewing and Sue Ellen, made those stories stick in my mind.
Don’t we have at least a few ‘characters’ like that here in our lives? People that we’ve only heard about but never actually met? People that we are so curious to know about them that we just can’t help but cling to and share every little bit of story (i.e rumor) that we hear? It’s no different than watching TV is it? Don’t you hear people all the time talking about television characters as if they are real? “Oh did you hear what so and so did on such and such a show?” It’s very common.
Rumors are stories that stick because they are have real life emotion in them. They are interesting and satisfy that curiosity seeking part of our mind. We can’t help ourselves. We love a good story, especially mini dramas - whether they are in real life or on TV.
So that said - what do we do with the negative power that stories and rumors have on our lives? Think about it - whether we know it or not, our human lives are all intertwined, as if we are all in the same boat. Let’s literally imagine that we are in one giant canoe traveling down the river together. It’s like that in the sense that our personal and economic well-being is all linked together right?
So here we are in the same boat and there is a big JR Ewing type in the back. Those of us who are in the front just can’t help ourselves. We start out with just tiny twitters, “Oh did you see who’s in the back?” Then it gets a little louder - “Did you know that he just bought a gigantic new property?”
Now we can’t stop ourselves - “What do you think he’s going to do with it?” which really means - how is what he’s doing going to affect us here in the front of the boat.
The answer is yes it will affect us. We are all affected by each other in ways that are obvious or not so-obvious. Take JR for example. How do you think he’s going to feel if he hears us talking about him, which inevitably he will? We think we’re not doing harm right? We’re just curious or we tell ourselves that we are looking for information and wanting to understand. All true.
But now put yourself in the back of the boat, be JR for a moment and consider just how it feels to be talked about in whispers. Not good right? For good or for bad - rumors are stories that are told about us.
We’re not involved in the communication and are hearing it from the outside, thus we have no direct participation. That’s the part that makes a rumor deadly. When we feel cut off from other people, we feel like we’re unfairly picked on even when the rumor is not meant to hurt.
Even when we are curious or just seeking more information - telling stories about other people when they are not directly involved, does harm.
But here’s the cool thing and the point of change - we can just as easily spread “appreciative stories” - i.e. rumors that highlight a person’s greatness, not their weakness. The more we do this the more we grow together. Imagine what happens when we start circulating positive, inspiring stories about everyone in the boat.
Imagine just how much faster we are able to row to the shore through uplifting feedback rather than rumor.
Now I am NOT saying that we should never be honest or be real about things. We need to tell the truth but these things are not mutually exclusive. And appreciative feedback is not just some nice thing relegated only to those ‘touchy feeling’ types.
Believe it or not, positive feedback it is the single biggest thing that makes a difference in terms of human motivation. That is what every great leader knows about making great people - to create greatness you first have to look for the greatness in others, then point it out to them since they often don’t see it themselves and finally pass it on and share it with others.
This is called a ‘positive feedback loop‘. Yes there’s actually a name for it! And it generates much more than the original story and lasts long after the story is done being told.
We are all in the same boat, heading to the same shore. If we start today spreading stories of inspiration and goodness about each other, just imagine how quickly it can generate new energy. We can do this.
Each of us can start today by sharing new stories. We can also commit to being the of the end line for spreading stories don’t contribute to our well-being or success. We’re all in this together.
Thanks for listening and please feel free to share….
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Where Fulfillment Really Comes From, It’s Not Where You Think
February 25, 2010
We spend most of our lives turning in tiny circles, around and around like a dog chasing it’s tail - trying to find happiness, love, peacefulness and most of all fulfillment. So why does it seem to always elude us?
We feel it for a fleeting second and then it is gone. We try to hold onto it but it is more slippery than an underwater eel. It has an elusive quality to it that we just can’t wrap our hands or minds around.
Why is that?
Some say that the world was created this way on purpose. Why is that? It’s kind of like this - if you’re always great at everything, if everything comes to you easily and you never have to work at anything, then life would be totally boring and unfulfilling.
We don’t think it would be. We long for this imagined nirvana in which we never have to work again but honest to God, we’d be dead in two days from complete boredom.
You see our true and lasting fulfillment comes from effort - from going against the grain, pushing against what’s difficult and doing what seems impossible.
Yikes!
That doesn’t match my ’sit-on-a-sandy-beach-in-the-sun’ idea of fulfillment. That’s not what I had in mind!
But without that effort, life would be too easy and we’d again be bored to tears. We’d say to ourselves, (yawn) - “Oh boy another day of Pina Coladas, sun and surf. Give me some meaty challenge to deal with please!”
Fulfillment comes from doing what we don’t want to do - calling my mother when I’d rather turn off the phone, reaching out to a friend when I would prefer to be lounging on the couch and most important of all - really looking inside and changing from the inside out.
Ok ready for some fun? I’ll go first. Let’s make a list together of our worst attributes. You call that fun? Not yet but just hang in there ok?
My top three are:
- Arrogance - too many lifetimes as a haughty queen.
- Stubborness - my mother found this out when I was only 1 year old.
- Hardheadedness - I always think I’m right. Aren’t I??
So no slouching now. It’s not enough just to sit and stare at my negative traits, that’s not fair. Get out your pen and start jotting your own top 3 -5 .
Here is your secret doorway to fulfillment. Each day start changing those horrible, awful and ugly traits into their higher qualities and voila’ you will see an amazing change. Ok I’ll go first again.
- Arrogant - instead of being above people, I have to weather this discomfort of being the same, being alike and joining in. Eeeek! But once I do that I get the surprising and hidden benefit of love, caring and belonging. See what I mean now?
- Stubborn - instead of always digging my heels in I need to flex, bend and go with the flow. Super hard for me to do but hey I’m out for more in life. When I do this, I get the unexpected fulfillment of peacefulness and happiness.
- Hard headed - I’m not changing this no matter what you say! Just kidding. I have to realize that I am not always right and learn to value others opinions, needs and points of view, even if they’re wrong. Just kidding again, but see how hard this is!
Now let me be honest and say that that I don’t personally want to give up any of these traits. Well I do on a ‘higher level’ but we have to realize that these ‘negative’ traits are actually easy and comfortable for us.
It is much easier to look down on people than to feel the discomfort of being being part of things and being rejected right? Get the idea?
Growth which leads to fulfillment is always uncomfortable!
If it’s easy, it’s not the right path. Now I’m not talking about needless pain or suffering. I’m talking about pushing and exerting in a direction that you know you need to change. Even your mother will agree.
If you don’t believe me, and there is no reason that you should, then try this test. Ask your three best friends and your mother and if you want to amp it up then ask your worst enemy too - say “What are my worst traits that if I changed them, I would be a better person?”
No covering your ears when they reply. That’s cheating too.
Breathe, open your heart, keep your shoulders down, keep your hands loose and smile while you’re listening.
Think to yourself, “Ah this is the best thing that I could possibly hear because it is my ticket to freedom.” Picture all of the love, happiness and fulfillment that is going to come streaming in when you do this.
So this is where fulfillment really lives - under the ugly, the uncomfortable and the not-so-lovable parts of ourselves. They are there for a reason. Let’s go for the gusto and make some change today. Please feel free to report your efforts.
Yours in always seeking for more and more and more,
Annie
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42 Day Creative Retreat Process: The Details Revealed
February 21, 2010
Woo-hoo here we go folks. This week for the first time I will be talking about the 42 Day Creative Retreat process live on a Webinar with my wonderful colleague Jeff Simpkins.
Here’s the description:
42 Day Creative Retreat Process: How to go away every day
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 @ 1 pm Eastern
You want to do bigger things in life but sometimes those bigger, more meaningful projects seem impossible to get off the ground. How do you take time out of your busy day to dedicate to the things that really matter to you? More importantly how do you overcome that ever present inner critic that tells you you can’t do it? Join Annie Hart (that’s me), creator and developer of the 42 Day Creative Retreat Process which helped her create a nearly complete body of work in only 42 days.
Now what’s not to love about that folks?
You want to do bigger things in the world and it’s darned hard to get them off the ground right? That’s why I put myself in the ‘desert’ of my own life to find out how to crack the code and I’m bringing it out to the public now for the very first time.
Please join us. Jeff is great - very lively and engaging. He is the one who I tell the funny story about that he turned me on to Bea Fields, the blogging class and the power of Twitter. This is a man with a lot of heart, knowledge and expertise.
He will be hearing about the process for the first time as well. So do be on the edge of your seats to find out all the juicy details!
The Webinar is free but you do need to register. Just click here to do so.
Coming soon, my collaborator Ian Waddelow and I will be launching a 42 Day Retreat pilot group. How fun is that!
So stay tuned for more and as always get out there and change the world!
Annie
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The Storyteller Tells Her Stories
February 20, 2010
It’s time to take a leap. Every now and then in your life, more often then I’d like, it’s time to take a deeper plunge, a bigger risk and really go for the gold. So I am going to be writing and telling my own very personal and sometimes painful stories for the very first time.
Whew! Breathe.
It’s not easy! I make it look and seem easy for other people, that’s my gift. But damn it is really hard to do for myself. Luckily I have found just the right team as it honestly takes a team to pull these stories out of me. They don’t want to come out on their own.
These stories are like little long-fingered underwater creatures who are gripping onto the rocks so they don’t have to let go. Eeeeeek!
Why is it so scary to tell personal stories? Very personal stories.
Gosh, I could give you a long list of the reasons that it’s so scary. It seems silly to say but it actually feels life threatening to a part of us. Telling our stories is a way out of the box that we have lived in. We are bound by the emotions, the memories and the meanings of our past stories and thus like the famous Pandora’s box, we must liberate them.
Fortunately as I said, I have just the right team - I have my wonderful reliable weekly writing buddy whom I meet weekly at the local Barnes and Noble coffee shop so we can write together. We’ve been doing this for some months now.
In case you’d want to know my reason for meeting there - it’s because they have sunshine streaming in the windows (I need to feel warm), great Earl Grey tea (I need to have good tea) and a bag of delicious potato chips doesn’t hurt.
Basically it’s a good way to bribe myself to keep on going doing something that is hard!
Then I have my fabulous listening buddy who is helping me tell the stories orally. Written stories and orally told stories are two very different animals and so I know from my own story guiding of others, that the deeper, more painful and often more powerful stories need to be ‘listened out of you.’
My story Maestro listens to me very carefully. He is impeccable in his listening, which is what I really need. He does not trod on my heart nor make those kinds of comments afterwards that make you wish you’d never told your story. He wears a white velvet glove of purity that makes the telling easy.
To be impeccable in your listening you have to be out of your out of your own way - be really silent and really present.
But here is the best part of all. He also makes me laugh while I’m crying! Yesterday was a perfect example.
Yesterday as I was telling a difficult story (and blowing my nose through the telling), I suddenly heard an indescribable noise, a kind of ‘crkkkkrrrrrr‘ sound. Hmm, what was that???
He didn’t say anything about it and I heard him make an ‘uh huh‘ sound like he was listening, so I just carried on.
A minute later I couldn’t hear him, so I asked, “Are you there Chief?” (that’s one of my nicknames for him). Then there was the sound of scramble, scramble, scramble and then he says, “Yes I’m here. I just kicked the microphone over.” Perfect timing!
It was perfect timing. I started laughing so loudly that my crying and snorting turned into guffawing. It was a priceless moment.
Perfect for the storyteller to be paused mid-sob for a moment of sheer humor. My impeccable listener, who was working so hard to be there for me knocked over his microphone and was trying to retrieve it without interrupting.
I am still laughing just picturing him trying to rebound without disrupting my story. What a riot!
These are the precious moments of storytelling. In that moment I realized that it’s not just the telling of the story that is important, but every thing beautiful that surrounds it - the bonding that happens between two humans as they listen and share and the moments of pure delight when real life magic happens and humor appears out of nowhere.
This is the true magic of storytelling.
I am pr
oud, honored, scared and delighted to be telling my own raw and real stories. The deep ones, the raw ones, the ones that matter. If I can’t lead the way on then I’m not worth my metal.
Gotta leap, gotta take a dive.
Thanks to all my partners for supporting me. It takes a community to tell a story. I’d still be on the ledge without you. Thanks as well to all of my blog readers for caring about stories and storytelling. You make all the difference.
Stay tuned for more of the raw and real, the places we dive deep together and make life more fulfilling from taking risks.
Yours in diving into the heart of the matter and laughing about it all the way,
Annie
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The Transformative Power of Stories for Children
February 17, 2010
Annie: This is a beautiful story sent to me by Mike Blackstone a friend, colleague and blog reader of mine. He told some stories to his children with truly magical results. This really invites us to realize the transformative power of story. Thanks for sharing Mike. It really opened my heart.
Mike: A month ago I was invited to a lecture that was to take place last Sunday afternoon. I had completely forgotten about this lecture until it popped back into my mind 25 minutes before it was to begin. Interestingly, I had spent some quality time with my two little boys that morning, had all my “chores” done, so I told my wife Maureen I was going.
When I got to the lecture, I found out the speaker was an “ageless wisdom” guy which I don’t know much about. His theme was “Unfolding the Soul’s Purpose,” and among many things, he talked a little about reincarnation and astrology. I enjoyed it.
When I got home, I did a little research on the internet about him and about some of his subjects. I came across one little tidbit in an online astrology chart about focusing on “raising one’s children well,” and that struck a little heart chord. Hmm, could be a bit of a life purpose in there?
A couple of hours later I had this impulse and decided to tell my 6 year-old a story, and base it on the concept that we had lived other lives together. I completely improvised it. Here is the gist:
We were young brothers (Native Americans) in the 1800s. Out on an exploratory adventure, we were attacked by a mountain lion. It took all of our wits (mostly his) to both come out of it alive. Later we were attacked by a she-bear when we accidentally stumbled upon her cubs. Again our wits, mostly his, saved the day.
Several times during the story he said, with his head cocked to one side and his eyes narrowed, “Dad, you’re making this up, aren’t you?” Of course I denied it saying that that’s what I “remember.” But each time he asked me to keep telling the story.
About an hour later, my 9 year-old, Elliot, comes into my office and asks, very intently, “What did you tell Euan?” I said, “Why are you asking?” He replied, “Well, Euan said you TOLD him something!” “Do you want me to tell you something, too?” “Yes.” So I told Elliot a story, completely improvised, that went like this.
We were neighbor kids in the tenements of New York City in the late 1920s—best buddies who lived about a block apart. One day we were hanging out in the neighborhood, but I was about a block away around the corner with a couple of the guys. I heard loud voices and we came around the corner to see what was going on.
“I saw you (Elliot) surrounded by four rough guys from another neighborhood, and one started threatening you that they were going to beat you up. That kid turned, looked at his buddies to smile, and as he turned his head back, your fist lashed out, caught him square in the nose and knocked him clean onto his back.
There was blood everywhere. The other three were about to set on you but saw me and the other guys, grabbed their fallen comrade and beat a hasty retreat. They never came back.”
When I was done, Elliot floored me by saying, “Thanks, Dad, for telling me that story. And you know the part I liked the best? I didn’t need you to save me.”
I was dumbfounded in some wonderful way. The next morning, as I was taking them to school, Elliot said, “Thanks again for telling me that story, Dad, I really liked it.” And I wondered again what that was all about. He had never thanked me before for telling a story.
A few nights later I was tucking the boys in bed, I told Euan another story where we were both bridge builders, but he was a bridge designer. Right at that moment he nodded his head deeply in some sort of agreement, and he saved my life on a bridge-building site during an earthquake. Remember, he was the skeptic.
This time HE thanked me for telling him that story.
When he nodded his head it was pretty funny because he’s lately been into wearing a blindfold to bed—the kind you get on an airplane. So, I’m right by his face, softly telling him the story, he’s wearing his blindfold, and he starts to nod in agreement when I get to the “bridge designer” part. It melted my heart.
There have been a few more stories since, and, with how much they seem to love them, there WILL be many more.
I am still digesting all this, but I find it amazing. A couple of clues I’m looking at—Euan (6yrs) loves to build things and is a Lego maniac. Elliot (9 yrs) loves everything about the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and is determined to make his living as a pro wrestler.
Annie: Don’t you love this story? Sweet, simple ways to make a difference in the minds of children. Thanks Mike for sharing the transformative power of story.
Yours in always sharing the stories that matter,
Annie
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Stories From the Next World: Swimming Against the Tide
February 15, 2010
I must be doing it all wrong. Everyone else is doing it one way and I am doing it the total opposite. I must be a total failure. That’s what I told myself for many years in the area of marketing my business.
Recently I had a conversation with a colleague who is great at marketing, in fact he has a background in corporate sales. He and I have similar training in NLP and Hypnosis and some years ago he went out on his own and created his own business. He’s doing fine but he’s not really thriving. His struggle is to get repeated clients.
But if you ask me (and no one did!), that’s not the real issue. The real issue is that in all he’s doing he is missing a certain level of fulfillment. We all get into the ‘people business’ because we want to help people. Then we are given the dreaded mandate that we need to market ourselves. Eeek! Every creative caring person hates this part.
We didn’t get into business to be in business, we just happened to pick something which required it.
The irony is that even though he is the one with the marketing background and knows all the right ways to do things, I am in fact the one that is thriving. Better than that though is that I am very fulfilled in what I do. The money that keeps me afloat is wonderful but more vital than that is the happiness that I have.
I have nearly total fulfillment in my work. That is the biggest value that my business provides me. I love my clients, love what I do and am working with amazing people from all over the world. How the hell did that happen? Me who didn’t have a clue about marketing myself and never wanted to do it either.
I have been swimming against the tide.
When the experts told me to:
- Have a clear marketing and business plan - I couldn’t.
- Create an exact target market of who I am selling my services to - Uh no, couldn’t do that either. Isn’t it the whole world?
- Get out and network myself with schmaltzy print materials and business cards - Nope, hated that. I went to Starbucks instead.
- Create a one line description of what I do that would totally grab people’s attention in under 10 seconds - Call me old-fashioned but I stuck with regular old human conversation.
- Package my work in a formulaic way that I could sell to businesses - I’d rather have Chinese water torture than do this.
- yada
- yada
- yada
- yada
- yada
Anyway you get the idea. I did it all wrong. I did absolutely everything backwards from what the experts said I should do and much to my surprise - it worked!
Who are these experts anyway? Hmm, good question! Well they are might be people who have tried to find a kind of generic formula so that everyone can win the game. Not a bad idea by any means, many people do succeed this way.
But are they happy? The big question is - can we make money and have personal fulfillment too? The answer is - we must. This is just one of the values of the future - a “we can have it all” paradigm.
In the series that I am writing called, Stories From the Next World, I will be talking about the values of the next world - those values, traits and characteristics of greatness and bravery, that if we embody them now, we will be ahead of our time.
So trait number one is this - swim, swim, swim against the tide little fishes. If the experts tell you to X, Y, Z but you feel in your gut to Q, S and LL then you must. You need to have the courage to swim against the current of the world that says that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.
Swimming upstream is definitely hazardous. You have to be able to tolerate feeling alone, thinking you’re a failure, have people point out what you’re certainly doing wrong and feeling utterly confused.
But for me I just did it from instinct because I could never tolerate having business ’success’ at the expense of my personal freedom or fulfillment. No go Joe! At the end of the day, I want to be happy AND peaceful.
The world of the future will not be a world of either or - either I am rich or I am happy. The value of the next world is that it has to be both!
Stay tuned for more in the series of Stories From the Next World and please tune in to my weekly Radio 42 Show where I’ll be sharing more of these stories and secrets of the Universe as well. You wouldn’t want to miss those!
Yours in swimming against the tide that was going in the wrong direction anyway,
Annie
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The Story of the Miracle Pants
January 25, 2010
My mother is adorable. At 90 years old she still lives in an old fashioned world of no cell phones, no email and $5 pairs of pants.
She called me the other day very excited. I hate to say this but usually when she is excited about something for me it’s often something that I dread. Her tastes and mine are often very different.
As a kid she would take me to buy new shoes and when we got to the store she’d say to me, “Go ahead and pick out the ones that you like.” As soon as I would pick out the coolest, hippest pair of shoes that an 8-year old could find, she’d say, “Oh not those. We’re going to get these sturdy brown ones.” You know the sensible kind? Ugh! My mother’s taste in shoes and mine were radically different.
So when she called me the other day very excited to say that she wanted to buy me some pants, I had a moment of excitement until I realized that ‘Ugh’, they might be a lot like the brown shoes of the past.
But my mother is 90 now and I decided that I don’t have to ward off her clothing choices anymore. I can open to them and share her excitement, whether I want the pants or not. So I called her back.
She was just dying to tell me about these amazing $5 polyester knit pants that come in so many exciting colors and are completely spill proof. She knows this because she spilled her breakfast all over them and was able to wash them right out in the sink and they didn’t even leave a stain. Wow, these really are miracle pants.
I got such a kick out of her excitement about them. In her mind they have so many benefits - little washing, spill-ability and absolutely no ironing!
I have to say that it was so darned adorable how enchanted my mother is over these miracle pants that I decided to let her send me the catalog so I can (get this) pick out 5 pairs of my own that she wants to buy me!
Now here’s the funny part - when I told my niece Devon about this, we laughed until we nearly peed ourselves. We started making up funny stories about these miracle pants and all the things that they can do. So we decided that in addition to the no ironing, the spill factor and the many lovely colors, these pants can also provide these benefits:
- if you happen to be walking by a burning building and you are wearing these pants, go ahead and go inside because they are completely fire proof!
- if you should cut yourself and are being rushed to the emergency room, there is no need to worry about the wound, just wrap your pants around it and they will cauterize it immediately.
- got a bad ex-husband lingering around? These pants will get rid of him in a jiffy, need I say why?
- don’t have time to change between work and night life? These pants can go from a full day at the office to a night of disco dancing with a simple change of shoes. Note that I say disco dancing as they will probably not be suitable for any other type of dancing.
- do you need to sharpen your kitchen knives but don’t know where to take them? Worry no more, you can sharpen them right on your pants - they are just like stainless steel. Just be careful of your leg underneath.
Now these are just some of the many benefits of these miracle pants and as I said earlier, they are only $5 a pair. But what I am thinking of doing is buying them up in bulk and offering them on my website for an amazing deal of $7.50 a pair (let me know if you want some). I might as well turn a little profit from this amazing discovery don’t you think?
I just love the idea of wearing my miracle pants around town and watching people turn their heads to wonder if I have just stepped out of the movie “Staying Alive” (remember with John Travolta?).
I have offered to wear these pants to my nieces college graduation. Remember they won’t wrinkle in my suitcase. She however has threatened to kill me if I do. Young people are so ungrateful these days, they just don’t get the beauty of things like miracle pants like these.
Ahh, the beauty of the days of old, when pants were only $5 and had so many multiple uses. My mother lives happily in days of yore and I’m happy for her and her lilac, ruby and brown miracle pants.
Aren’t you curious to find out what colors I get and where I wear them? Stay tuned or put in your vote for which uses of the miracle pants you’d like to see me use them for.
Yours in wearing the pants that can change the world,
Annie
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Corey’s Story Journey: Hanging a Picture Frame Around Your Life
January 22, 2010
When I started working with Annie Hart and Katie Gutierrez Painter on my book, I really had no idea where it was headed, or how it would all come together. In fact, like so many of my own clients, I often felt lost throughout this process.
Over the last eight months the three of us got together weekly and Annie pulled out my most poignant business, creative, and personal stories so that Katie could document them. But remaining objective was something I have not been able to do well. My view of my life is infinite, it has no edges, and yet, we have to put a frame around my stories to build the book. We have to give the stories context.
A short lesson on context. One thing I have learned through working with so many books is that readers, as they read, are constantly pulling information, ideas and lessons from what they are reading and are subconsciously filing them in their brain as they travel down the page. If an author fails to provide their reader with enough context, files quickly get backed up and create clutter as the brain slows down and tries to determine how to categorize them. For most readers, a single uncategorizable file can knock the reading experience off course. I call this a roadblock.
The brain starts directing extra focus towards determining how to unclog the road block. But information, like cars, is still being added to the equation. So now attention is being split between trying to unclog the road block and trying to direct new traffic to where it needs to go. One little road block can lead to a pile-up if an author is not careful. And a pile-up is a quick indication to a reader to drive in the other direction—away from what they’re reading!
Throughout the process of telling my stories, I have been waiting for the context to become apparent. I’m a strong believer in not forcing it, and so I have been patient. Then yesterday it happened. Annie and Katie and I were coming to the end of the storytelling portion of our work together and over the last couple weeks we had begun pulling out the themes we saw running through my life.
Simultaneously, I’ve been dealing with some very difficult company setbacks and trying to untangle some rough terrain. To be candid, I felt recently like I was watching my company fall down around me. From an authentic conversation around my life and the business, my picture frame popped out and into view. What a joyous moment to arrive at, and we did it together.
This weekend I plan on taking my first stab at the introduction to the book, and next week, Katie and I will begin to assemble my stories based on our new context. Phase 1 is over. Now we breath and enter phase 2.
From Annie: Corey has been a delight and a joy to work with over these months. Together we dove deep into the stories of his life and I am so happy that he’s able to go to phase 2 now. What a beautiful journey!
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